Definitely looking to get more involved in the community of individuals in our area.  

But you will pay taxes unless you do a 1031.As far as the 1031 goes, In order to qualify for a 1031 exchange the real estate you are selling must be real estate that you purchased with the intent of holding for productive investment use. 

First, tell you boss at your company and make sure it's okay -- it doesn't do any good to make an investor mentor if you also lose your 9-to-5.As for approaching the individual: 1) explain why you're interested; 2) say that you did get the ok from your company, and that you're doing it in a totally private not-related-to-your-company way; and 3) offer to help out with his properties like you said.A key thing to be clear about -- if you offer to do any of your professional day-job work for him on the side as a favor for him helping you out, you need to be sure that your company doesn't mind you doing it.

I have been considering building a team in different markets to optimize my ROI thinking it may be slightly easier to locate a motivated seller that are not asking for retail.

Market seems to be saying your units are economically productive and on par with comparable units as is (based on tenants grabbing them).And, as you know now, that new smell and model home appearance of the totally remodeled and rehabbed unit will fade fast when the tenants treat it like, well, a rental...So you may just end up remodeling again if you sell or get a rough tenant..I tend to do more work on units prior to a sell and let the horses run with a rental with tenants in place that are relatively happy.

I am working on building out a motivated sellers website to try to get off market deals.

Here're just a few I like:Lifetime Cashflow with Rod KhleifWheelbarrow Profits with Jake and GinoBiz women rock (podcasts don't have to be RE only, they can be general education/motivational too!)

However, even then there are still people who do have circumstances where they may be motivated enough to do a terms deal.

Back when I worked for a production builder, I believe our warranty kicked in when the crack was 3/16" wide.

If they are motivated at that time to redeem, they will also have to pay your legal fees for the ejectment.If you have a tax deed, you can just give some sort of deadline in the letter and file ejectment after the deadline expires.